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Vettel will look for his seventh win of the Formula One season at this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Formula One’s Singapore Grand Prix has always favored Red Bull Racing, and after Friday’s practice sessions it looks like the dark blue cars will be very hard to beat this weekend after reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel topped the times.

The day was relatively uneventful as drivers got used to the new faster and chicane-less turn 10. A few drivers kissed walls but the only incident of note was when Pastor Maldonado ran wide and damaged his car’s nose, although the Williams driver was able to return to the pits without trouble.

Vettel finished the second session on top of the times, some 0.4-seconds ahead of teammate Mark Webber. More significantly the German was just more than a second clear of the next challenger, the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg. It’s a long lap around here, but nevertheless that’s a significant margin. And it wasn’t just the headline times on supersoft tires that mattered, as Red Bull’s cars were quicker over long runs as well.

Mercedes appears to be Red Bull’s main rival this weekend, but Rosberg admitted there is still a ways to go.

“We had a reasonable day but there is still some work to do this evening as our competitors seem to be very quick again,” he said. “We will be looking at how we used the tires this evening and make sure we are on top of potential overheating and degradation on the long runs as there are no long straights here to cool the tires down.”

Roseberg’s Mercedes teammate, Lewis Hamilton, was fastest in the first session, and finished the second session in fourth, behind his teammate. He was far from happy, however.

“It wasn’t the perfect Friday for us but we got on with our program and know where we have to make improvements for tomorrow,” he said. “The balance of the car felt really good in P1 but it definitely went away from us in P2.”

Romain Grosjean lost time in both sessions with some hydraulic problems, but still managed to take fifth place for Lotus. Ferrari appears to be off the pace, and while Fernando Alonso found some speed in the second session to take sixth place, he was a huge 1.4-seconds off Vettel’s pace, and his chances of getting his title challenge back on track rely on the German hitting trouble.

Jenson Button was seventh for McLaren in the second session, ahead of Kimi Räikkönen, while Adrian Sutil and Sergio Perez completed the top 10.